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Fostering Growth Through Rivalry: Leagues Cup and Its Unique Model for Cross-Border Football in North America

August 4 2026

WORDS & RESEARCH Marvin Heilbronn
PHOTOGRAPHY Matthew David Stith, Ethan White, Sara Messinger, Ian Beckley, Rigo Ramirez

North America's major professional leagues, from the NBA to the NHL, operate as closed domestic systems, in which full seasons are completed without ever contesting a competitive fixture against a team from a foreign league. World football, for all its global reach, leaves a unique gap as well: clubs play domestically, within their continental confederation, or at the Club World Cup, but never does one league meet another head-on. Leagues Cup closes that gap. For four weeks a summer, it pits one league against another, the best of MLS against Liga MX, fueling and testing a football rivalry that stretches back decades.

Leagues Cup is a CONCACAF-sanctioned club competition that unites all 18 Liga MX teams and 18 qualifying MLS clubs within a single interleague tournament (1). Now in its fourth official year, the competition builds on the momentum generated by a defining year for football across North America, deepens a regional rivalry that predates either league's existence, and awards qualification into the 2027 CONCACAF Champions Cup (2). Since the tournament was formally sanctioned as a continentally recognized competition in 2023, it has evolved from a modest experiment into one of the most exciting and unique events on the North American football calendar.

What renders Leagues Cup worthy of serious attention is not merely its scale but its underlying structure. No other official, multi-team tournament in the world pits two domestic leagues directly against one another the way Leagues Cup does (3). It remains, at present, the only tournament constructed on this premise, and as later sections of this paper demonstrate, the few historical precedents for something comparable never quite got off the ground. This year, CONCACAF and Leagues Cup are hoping that the tournament's continued development will keep momentum building, both around the sport and around the leagues themselves.

The fourth edition of Leagues Cup brings a distinction entirely of its own. For the first time, matches will be contested on Mexican soil, a change tournament organizers describe as central to what the competition is attempting to become. "What makes Leagues Cup compelling is the intersection of leagues, cultures, and identities," said Ava Taylor, the tournament's director of marketing, in advance of the 2026 rebrand (4). Staged in the immediate aftermath of a World Cup jointly hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico, this year's Leagues Cup functions as the next chapter in a considerably longer narrative about what football is becoming across North America. This paper unpacks that narrative and outlines how Leagues Cup operates simultaneously as a growth initiative built jointly by two leagues to develop and unite the game of football across North America, and as a vehicle for cross-border cultural connection between the United States and Mexico.

Tournament Format: How Leagues Cup 2026 Works

The 2026 tournament consists of 36 clubs: all 18 Liga MX teams and 18 qualifying MLS clubs. MLS clubs are ranked according to the final 2025 MLS Supporters' Shield standings, while Liga MX clubs are ranked on the basis of cumulative performance across the 2025 Apertura and Clausura tournaments (2). The competition is contested in two phases. Phase One, running from August 4 to 13, produces 54 MLS-versus-Liga MX matchups across nine days, with every club playing three matches, each one against an opponent from the opposing league (2). Clubs are divided into Eastern and Western regions of 18 teams apiece and, within each region, sorted into three tiers according to their Leagues Cup ranking: Tier 1 comprises teams ranked first through third in each league, Tier 2 comprises those ranked fourth through sixth, and Tier 3 comprises those ranked seventh through ninth, a structure intended to balance geographic proximity against competitive fairness (2).

A non-traditional aspect of the tournament is that Leagues Cup employs a no-ties format designed to guarantee a decisive result in every match: three points are awarded for a win in regulation, two points for a win via penalty shootout following a draw, and one point for a shootout loss (2). Advancement is then determined through one of the format's more distinctive mechanisms, a cross-league table system. Although clubs face only opponents from the opposing league throughout Phase One, their results are ranked within an 18-team table composed exclusively of clubs from their own domestic league. Advancement is unforgiving: only the top four clubs from each league's table advance to the Knockout Rounds (2).

All knockout matches are decided by single elimination. Any match tied after regulation proceeds directly to a penalty shootout, with no period of extra time. The stakes attached to this structure extend well beyond the trophy itself: Leagues Cup awards three qualification places to the 2027 CONCACAF Champions Cup, allocated to the champion, runner-up, and third-place finisher. The Leagues Cup champion advances directly into that tournament's Round of 16, a substantial shortcut toward continental and, eventually, global club competition (2). Historically, the tournament was contested entirely within the United States and Canada. In 2026, for the first time, four group-stage matches will be hosted inside storied Mexican venues, including Mexico City's Estadio Azteca (now known commercially as Estadio Banorte), Toluca's Estadio Nemesio Diez, and Estadio Universitario, home of Tigres (2)(5).

Defying a Rare Format’s Precedent

Before examining how Leagues Cup itself evolved, it is important to consider how rare its underlying format actually is within the broader landscape of international club football. Almost every other officially recognized cross-border competition is organized as a continental championship administered by a regional governing body, competitions such as the UEFA Champions League or the Copa Libertadores, which draw their teams from dozens of national federations rather than pitting two specific leagues directly against one another (6). The limited number of tournaments that have previously attempted the more direct, two-league format Leagues Cup employs possess a poor institutional survival record.

The clearest precedent is the North American SuperLiga, which operated from 2007 to 2010 and featured four selected clubs each from MLS and Liga MX within an officially CONCACAF-sanctioned competition functioning, in effect, as a sub-regional championship (7). The tournament produced compelling football but never captured the imagination of fans at scale, and it was discontinued following the 2010 edition. MLS commissioner Don Garber remarked at the time that "SuperLiga was a great tournament which served its purpose during its time," explaining that the competition was ultimately superseded once CONCACAF began developing its own Champions League into a more commercially viable alternative (7).

Scandinavia attempted a structurally similar experiment through the Royal League, an official winter tournament among the leading clubs of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway that operated from 2004 to 2007; it was canceled after three seasons, undermined by a general lack of interest among participating clubs, several of which fielded reserve and youth-team players in ways that depressed attendance and media coverage both within and outside the region (8).

The Texaco Cup offers another, though not the only, example of an earlier attempt at the same concept, inaugurated in 1970 as a 16-team competition among English, Scottish, Northern Irish, and Irish clubs that had narrowly missed European qualification. The tournament persisted in a diminished, increasingly disregarded form as the Anglo-Scottish Cup until 1981, by which point English clubs were fielding weakened reserve sides and Scottish clubs had effectively ceased participating (9).

Leagues Cup remains, to date, the only iteration of this concept to have not merely survived but expanded substantially to 36 clubs across two entire top divisions in 2026 (10).

Given that football's history in North America, particularly within the United States, remains less storied than its counterparts abroad, the sport is still working to build a fan base comparable to that of leagues around the world. Elsewhere in the footballing world, these leagues trace their roots to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a century-long head start that has tied clubs' identities directly to their cities. Closing that gap has required a strategy built on a willingness to experiment, given the absence of decades of inherited tradition. Novel and unique formats will always draw scrutiny, but they remain essential to engaging and growing the sport's audience across the continent. Operational logistics remain to be tested as Leagues Cup continues to develop, but the tournament is still incredibly young by global standards and may reasonably be afforded more time to grow into the major footballing institution it aspires to become (11).

History of the Past Editions

Leagues Cup was formally established in 2023 as a joint initiative between MLS and Liga MX intended to capitalize on their regional rivalry after receiving sanctioning from CONCACAF. This meant the tournament became a structured component of the North American football ecosystem with meaningful stakes, qualification into the CONCACAF Champions Cup, and expanded to encompass more clubs from both leagues (13). That expansion coincided with the single most consequential transfer in North American football history, Lionel Messi's arrival at Inter Miami CF only days before his Leagues Cup debut; Messi dominated the tournament, leading Inter Miami to a dramatic penalty-shootout victory over Nashville SC in the final, the club's first trophy in its history, with his stoppage-time free kick against Cruz Azul in his debut drawing 1.75 million viewers on Univision (13)(14)(15)(16).

Columbus Crew claimed the 2024 title by defeating Los Angeles FC, and by 2025 the tournament had refined its structure into the competitive 36-team, cross-league table format again employed this year, with Seattle Sounders FC capturing the 2025 championship over Inter Miami CF in a final that drew a tournament-record 69,314 spectators to Lumen Field, part of a total 2025 attendance of 1,058,038 across the competition (13)(17)(18). Since its official start, the pattern has held without exception: an MLS club has won the title and no Liga MX club has even reached the final (12). The 2026 edition attempts to address that imbalance, albeit modestly, by altering where the tournament is contested. Whether MLS's dominance can withstand these first road fixtures inside Mexico's most hostile venues is one of the exciting questions the 2026 edition was constructed to answer.

The Diplomatic Function of Sport: A framework for
cross-border connections

Having traced the tournament's history and examined the distinctiveness of its format, attention now turns to how these structural features bear on broader social and cultural dynamics across North America, and on the growth of the game itself. The proposition that sport can function as a substitute language between nations, capable of accomplishing diplomatic work that formal diplomacy cannot, is not a novel one. For millennia, sport and politics have been closely associated, with sport frequently serving a function that extends beyond "the game. (19)” The Ancient Olympiad, an athletic and religious festival conducted uninterrupted every four years from 776 BC to 393 AD, began as one of the activities during the festival of Zeus before developing into a sporting competition, functioning both as a gift to the populace and as a mechanism for sublimating conflict (19). The event originated the concept of a truce during competition: traveling spectators were afforded protection, and the truce prohibited all participating states from taking up arms, pursuing legal disputes, or carrying out death sentences for the duration of the Games (19).

Sports diplomacy, within this framework, transcends cultural difference, provides avenues for expanded dialogue, and unites disparate peoples through a shared affection for sport; it is facilitated by traditional diplomacy and employs sportspeople and sporting events to engage, inform, and cultivate a favorable image among foreign publics, shaping perceptions in ways conducive to a government's broader foreign policy objectives (19).” Such exchanges, by this account, promote international understanding and friendship while helping to dispel stereotype and prejudice, all while remaining "low-risk, low-cost and high profile (19).”

Contemporary scholarship treats major sporting events according to the same logic, as instruments through which nations and institutions construct soft power, deepen diplomatic relationships, and present themselves to external audiences. The jointly hosted 2026 World Cup across the United States, Canada, and Mexico is cited directly within this literature as a contemporary illustration of a tournament explicitly framed by its host nations as a demonstration that all three countries are "united through sport. (20)”

Research conducted around such tournaments has found that international sporting events measurably increase empathy across cultures, with fans reporting a strengthened sense of connection to individuals outside their own country following tournaments, a finding UNESCO has incorporated into decades of programming premised on sport's distinctive capacity to transcend the barriers that otherwise divide societies. (21) (22). That programming holds that sport challenges the stereotypes and social norms that otherwise constrain participation, and unites individuals from genuinely diverse backgrounds, fostering teamwork, cooperation, and mutual respect while cultivating a genuine sense of community and belonging (23). Leagues Cup, this paper contends, is best understood as precisely this kind of social and cultural connector, the construction of something genuinely new, fostering relations between two nations from the deliberate collision of their two leagues.

Leagues Cup as an Empirical Case Study:
Club competition, fan culture, league standing

Leagues Cup applies the aforementioned body of theory at the level of club competition, and the 2026 expansion into Mexico is the point at which the theory becomes empirically testable rather than merely aspirational. MLS clubs are no longer confined to hosting Liga MX opponents domestically; they are traveling south and contesting competitive fixtures inside football's most demanding and iconic arenas.

This exposure operates bidirectionally. With the recent expansion into Mexico, Liga MX supporters in Mexico gain access to MLS clubs without crossing an international border, and have the opportunity to follow their own clubs into the United States as the knockout stage continues (24). Additionally, for the many Liga MX supporters living in the United States, the tournament offers a rare chance to watch their favorite club on U.S. soil, offering an affordable, accessible way to watch their team at home without having to cross the border. MLS supporters, meanwhile, join crowds within stadiums that have shaped the sport's history across decades when their clubs travel south, and welcome historic Mexican teams into their own stadiums back home. Over time, this exposure to new teams and new environments can help build a broader following for North American football as a whole, one that extends well beyond the tournament itself.

The benefits of this nation-versus-nation styled tournament extend past individual teams and players to the leagues themselves. American professional leagues are, with rare exception, closed and entirely domestic systems. The NBA, NFL, MLB, and other major leagues compete every season almost exclusively against other American and Canadian organizations, with no foreign league against which to measure themselves. Leagues Cup constitutes one of the only instances within modern American professional sport in which a domestic team's season is directly and repeatedly tested against clubs drawn from an entirely distinct national system. For an MLS club, defeating a Liga MX opponent in Leagues Cup, particularly under 2026's conditions, on the road and before a hostile Mexican crowd, constitutes something more than an ordinary result: it is one of the rare circumstances in which an American professional sports organization's quality is measured against an external standard, and consequently one of the clearest mechanisms through which the sport can substantiate its own growth rather than merely assert it.

Taken together, these dynamics show Leagues Cup operating simultaneously as a shared cultural stage for supporters, and a structural corrective for leagues otherwise insulated from external comparison, making it one of the clearest available tests of how sport can deliver cross-border connection.

United States and Mexico: A rivalry built on shared roots

None of this cultural exposure occurs upon a blank historical slate. The rivalry upon which Leagues Cup is constructed sits atop a considerably longer history of migration, dual national identity, and post-NAFTA economic integration between the United States and Mexico, one in which football becomes the space where split allegiances and cultural differences manifest as passion and pageantry rather than political conflict (25).

An estimated 40 million people of Mexican origin live in the United States, according to recent U.S. Census Bureau data and analysis from the Pew Research Center, making up about 11.5 percent of the total U.S. population (26). The U.S. Latino economy, meanwhile, reached $4.4 trillion in 2024, a demographic force increasingly demanding media and sporting structures that reflect bilingual, cross-border lives (27). The 2026 Leagues Cup situates itself directly within that identity, giving fans the chance to support Mexican clubs representing heritage and family origin while simultaneously engaging with the American football ecosystem they inhabit. This dual loyalty assumes visible, everyday forms, from supporters flying a single flag split half American and half Mexican to honor a country of birth and a parent's homeland simultaneously, to older generations transmitting a lifetime of Liga MX allegiance to grandchildren born in the United States. During Leagues Cup, Mexican-American communities in cities such as Los Angeles, Houston, and Chicago transform MLS venues into home environments for visiting Mexican clubs, weaving cultural artistry, music, and cuisine into the matchday experience. On the national stage, a growing cohort of dual-national players, including Obed Vargas, Brian Gutierrez, and Alejandro Zendejas, represents a generation navigating both footballing systems at once (28).

This form of connection carries additional significance given the political context against which it occurs. Relations between the United States and Mexico in recent years have been shaped as substantially by disputes over trade, immigration, and border policy as by cooperation, and it is against precisely that backdrop that a stadium section filled with supporters of Tigres UANL and a section filled with supporters of Real Salt Lake can stand adjacent to one another for ninety minutes and share something comparatively uncomplicated. Football's capacity to bring people together in this way is well documented, and Leagues Cup, now extended into Mexico, represents a deliberate and continuing effort to harness that capacity on behalf of these two nations, translating a relationship too often defined by division into one built, for ninety minutes at a time, on shared identity.

Institutional Skepticism

Like many new competitions in football, Leagues Cup has drawn its share of skepticism. As one assessment of the tournament's commercial reception put it, "almost any new endeavor [MLS] attempts will be met with open disdain from consumers of the sport at home and abroad, maybe unfairly labeled synthetic or tossed aside." That criticism, the same assessment continues, "is impossible to avoid when you're reinventing yourself and constantly adjusting your product in search of profitability and relevance. (29). Independent reporting reflects a similar reception: some long-time supporters have grouped Leagues Cup with competitions like the EFL Carabao Cup or the Club World Cup, describing it as an economic venture pursued at the expense of tradition and history. Such comparisons, however, measure Leagues Cup against a football culture in the UK and Germany, respectively, that the United States does not yet have, which is precisely why it is important to welcome and support new initiatives working to grow the game in North America.

Other critiques call for a prioritization of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, the oldest ongoing national football competition in the United States, over Leagues Cup (30). However, Leagues Cup does not inherently conflict with the Open Cup and should not be compared: while it does add fixtures to an already full calendar, its distinct nation-versus-nation format serves a different purpose entirely, expanding the leagues' relevance and advancing football across North America between two countries whose people are deeply intertwined.

Leagues Cup has also faced structural criticism of its own. Because nearly all of its matches were, prior to 2026, contested at MLS venues, some observers have suggested the format was built to favor MLS sides. MLS commissioner Don Garber has offered a different account of that design, framing Leagues Cup explicitly as a vehicle to "grow the sport in North America," and noting that hosting matches on MLS grounds provided "terrific exposure" for the American market specifically (31). Additionally, the 2026 shift toward games played in Mexico marks a clear and deliberate step in the right direction: while it does not resolve the critique in full, it signals a tournament looking to evolve (32).

Leagues Cup is still young, and any verdict on its success would come too soon. As one assessment put it, "A better time to accurately judge its success may be towards the end of this decade, after the tournament has had an opportunity to mature a bit... MLS and Liga MX will surely continue to tinker with it in the meantime, aiming to make it something consumers in the US actually care about. (29)” That capacity for continual reinvention is, in its own right, characteristic of MLS as an institution, one still in the process of building itself, and it is precisely that willingness to adapt and respond that positions Leagues Cup to grow into the identity its founders envisioned, continuing to grow football across North America.

Conclusion

Leagues Cup did not inherit the century of tradition that anchors football clubs across Europe and South America, nor does it have the luxury of assuming its place in the sport's landscape. What it has instead is an original idea, tested in real time, in front of the very fans it is working to win over. Its no-draw format, cross-league tables, and pathway into the CONCACAF Champions Cup all exist because two leagues chose to build something that had never quite worked anywhere else in the sport's history. Where the SuperLiga, the Royal League, and the Texaco Cup all quietly disappeared, Leagues Cup has instead grown to thirty-six club competition, proof that patience and a willingness to keep reinventing itself can still produce something durable.

That durability matters because Leagues Cup is about more than just crowning a champion. It is working to accomplish what formal diplomacy alone cannot: shrink the distance between two nations whose economies, histories, and families are already inseparably intertwined. The 2026 expansion into Mexico turns that proposition from a claim into a test, sending MLS clubs into the country's most demanding stadiums and welcoming some of Liga MX's storied teams across the border in return. Every one of those exchanges, in the stands as much as on the field, gives an estimated 40 million Americans of Mexican origin a tournament built with their doubled identity in mind, and gives two leagues still writing their own histories a chance to measure themselves against each other.

None of this erases the fair questions still surrounding Leagues Cup, but a tournament only four years into its sanctioned life is still in the middle of answering those questions. If the last three editions are any indication, a modest experiment that has grown into a 36-club competition drawing more than a million spectators a summer, the trajectory points toward growth.

Leagues Cup was built on the idea that two leagues, stand to gain more from meeting each other directly than from staying behind their own borders. Four years in, with matches now being played on both sides of that border for the first time, that idea looks less like a bet and more like a foundation. There are no ties in Leagues Cup, and increasingly, there are no borders either, just two countries' worth of fans, players, and clubs, united by the shared goal of growing football across North America.

To find out more information about Leagues Cup, visit leaguescup.com

Endnotes

1. Concacaf. 2026. "Leagues Cup 2026 Schedule Unveiled." https://www.concacaf.com/champions-cup/news/leagues-cup-2026-schedule-unveiled/

2. LeaguesCup.com. 2026. "Leagues Cup 2026 Set to be Played August 4-September 6; Participating Clubs Announced." https://www.leaguescup.com/news/leagues-cup-2026-set-to-be-played-august-4-september-6-participating-clubs-announced

3. LeaguesCup.com. n.d. "About." https://www.leaguescup.com/about/

4. LeaguesCup.com. 2026. "Leagues Cup Unveils Brand Evolution Ahead of 2026 Tournament." https://www.leaguescup.com/news/leagues-cup-unveils-brand-evolution-ahead-of-2026-tournament

5. AOL. 2026. "Leagues Cup to hold matches in Mexico for first time." https://www.aol.com/articles/leagues-cup-hold-matches-mexico-182320330.html

6. LeaguesCup.com. n.d. "About." https://www.leaguescup.com/about/

7. New England Revolution (Revolutionsoccer.net). 2018. "'They Were Not Happy About Losing to MLS Teams': An Oral History of the 2008 North American SuperLiga." https://www.revolutionsoccer.net/news/they-were-not-happy-about-losing-to-mls-teams-oral-history-2008-superliga

8. These Football Times. 2019. "Remembering the Ill-Fated but Tantalising Royal League, the Scandinavian Champions League." https://thesefootballtimes.co/2019/01/25/remembering-the-ill-fated-but-tantalising-royal-league-the-scandinavian-champions-league/

9. When Saturday Comes. n.d. "How the Texaco Cup Briefly Gripped Parts of Scotland and the West Midlands." https://www.wsc.co.uk/stories/how-the-texaco-cup-briefly-gripped-parts-of-scotland-and-the-west-midlands/

10. beIN Sports. 2025. "How Long Has the Leagues Cup Been an Official Tournament Between MLS and Liga MX?" https://www.beinsports.com/en-us/soccer/articles/how-long-has-the-leagues-cup-been-an-official-tournament-between-mls-and-liga-mx-2025-07-27

11. FC Business. n.d. "How MLS Is Different to the Big European Leagues." https://fcbusiness.co.uk/news/how-mls-is-different-to-the-big-european-leagues/

12. Fox Sports. n.d. "Leagues Cup winners: Complete list of champions." https://www.foxsports.com/stories/soccer/leagues-cup-winners-complete-list-champions

13. St. Louis City SC. n.d. "Leagues Cup: History, Format, and St. Louis CITY SC Rivals." https://www.stlcitysc.com/news/leagues-cup-history-format-and-st-louis-city-sc-rivals

14. LeaguesCup.com. 2023. "Lionel Messi joins Inter Miami CF, set to debut in Leagues Cup." https://www.leaguescup.com/news/lionel-messi-joins-inter-miami-cf-set-to-debut-in-leagues-cup

15. ESPN. 2023. "MLS, Liga MX unveil format for 47-team Leagues Cup 2023." https://www.espn.com/soccer/major-league-soccer/story/4762665/mlsliga-mx-unveil-format-for-47-team-leagues-cup-2023

16. Sportico. 2023. "Messi Pushes Leagues Cup Fan Response Beyond Expectations." https://www.sportico.com/leagues/soccer/2023/messi-leagues-cup-mls-success-1234734109/

17. MLSsoccer.com. 2025. "CHAMPIONS: Seattle Sounders Win Leagues Cup 2025 over Inter Miami." https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/champions-seattle-sounders-win-leagues-cup-2025-over-inter-miami

18. AOL. 2025. "Leagues Cup Altered into 36-Team Format for 2025." https://www.aol.com/leagues-cup-altered-36-team-210309267.html

19. Murray, Stuart, and Geoffrey Allen Pigman. 2014. "Mapping the relationship between international sport and diplomacy." Sport in Society 17, no. 9: 1098-1118. https://doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2013.856616. Includes secondary citations to Der Derian (1987), Scrambler (2005), and Keech and Houlihan (1999) as they appear within the original text.

20. Brannagan, Paul Michael, Richard Giulianotti, and Jonathan Grix. 2025. "Sport and Power: hard power, soft power and smart power." Leisure Studies: 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/02614367.2025.2472728

21. Remitly. n.d. "How Sports Unite Countries and Bridge Cultural Divides." https://www.remitly.com/blog/lifestyle-culture/how-sports-unite-countries/

22. UNESCO. n.d. "Cultures at the Games!" https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/cultures-games

23. Keyser-Verreault, Amélie, Sophie Brière, Marilou St-Pierre, Guylaine Demers, and Diane Culver. 2024. Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Sports Organizations. Translated by Catriona LeBlanc. Quebec City: Presses de l'Université Laval.

24. LeaguesCup.com. 2026. "From Mexico City to Vancouver: The Fan Cultures Shaping Leagues Cup." https://www.leaguescup.com/news/from-mexico-city-to-vancouver-the-fan-cultures-shaping-leagues-cup

25. Kassing, Jeffrey W., and Lindsey J. Meân, eds. 2017. Perspectives on the U.S.-Mexico Soccer Rivalry: Passion and Politics in Red, White, Blue, and Green. Palgrave Macmillan. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-55831-8

26. Pew Research Center. 2025. "Key facts about U.S. Latinos." https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/10/22/key-facts-about-us-latinos/

27. Latino Donor Collaborative. 2026. "The 2026 Official LDC U.S. Latino GDP Report." https://latinodonorcollaborative.org/reports/the-2025-official-ldc-u-s-latino-gdp-report-part-one/

28. Pérez, Albert. 2026. "U.S.-Born Brian Gutiérrez and Obed Vargas Signal a New Era for Mexico's National Team." Los Angeles Times, De Los. https://www.latimes.com/delos/story/2026-06-30/u-s-born-brian-gutierrez-obed-vargas-signal-new-era-for-mexico

29. Maurer, Pablo. 2025. "Leagues Cup Has Evolved, but Its Relevance Is as Questionable as Ever." The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/aug/06/leagues-cup-mls-liga-mx

30. WFAA. 2024. "Boycotting Leagues Cup: MLS supporters groups around the league stand up against 'money grab' tournament." https://www.wfaa.com/article/sports/soccer/leagues-cup-2024-boycott-mls/287-f9f9998c-53ca-4720-8c74-c628bd989379

31. AOL. 2026. "Leagues Cup: Q&A with MLS commissioner Don Garber and Liga MX president Mikel Arriola." https://www.aol.com/sports/leagues-cup-q-mls-commissioner-180049796.html

32. CBS Sports. n.d. "MLS, Liga MX expand Leagues Cup and announce plan to pause seasons around annual competition." https://www.cbssports.com/soccer/news/mls-liga-mx-expand-leagues-cup-and-announce-plan-to-pause-seasons-around-annual-competition

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